The path out of the village was steep, carved into the bones of the cliffs that overlooked the ruins of the Ironspire Clan. Few dared tread it.
Too dangerous, they said.Too cursed, they whispered.
But Kael didn't care.
He limped forward, blood soaking through his torn robe, rusted blade dragging behind him, leaving a thin line in the dirt like a wounded beast's trail.
His shoulder burned. His ribs ached with every breath. Hunger gnawed at his gut. The fight with Jarek had taken what little strength he had left.
Still, he didn't stop.
Not when the path vanished into loose gravel and jagged stone.Not when the wind howled down from the mountains like a beast's breath.Not even when night fell, and the cold crept into his bones.
He found a cave beneath a shattered stone arch—the last remnant of the Ironspire's ancestral temple. Its walls were cracked and soot-stained, half-swallowed by vines and time. A place long forgotten by gods and men alike.
Kael collapsed against the wall and stared at the ceiling.
"Is this where you trained, Father?" he whispered.
Silence answered.
Only the crackle of dry wind and the whisper of leaves. The dead had no lessons left.
So Kael would make his own.
The next morning, pain greeted him like an old friend.
His body refused to rise, but he forced it to.
He scavenged what little he could—roots, rainwater, bitter berries. Then he walked out into the broken courtyard and dropped to his knees.
Not in surrender.
In discipline.
He began with what little he knew: Iron Root Breathing—a basic technique his father once taught him as a child. Nothing mystical. Just a way to harden the lungs and still the mind.
In. Hold. Out. Hold.Repeat until the world fades.
The first hour felt like drowning.
The second brought dizziness.
By the third, he vomited blood.
Still, he breathed.
Then came stone dragging.
He tied a length of vine to a massive slab of broken masonry and looped it over his shoulders.
One step.Two.
The stone scraped across the courtyard, echoing like thunder.His feet bled. His muscles spasmed.
But he kept moving.
Again.Again.Again.
At night, when the pain numbed and his arms shook uncontrollably, he collapsed in front of the cold campfire pit.
He didn't sleep.
He stared at the sword lying beside him.
So dull. So broken.Yet it had cut Jarek.
And that meant it could cut more.
He picked it up, wrapped cloth around the hilt, and began swinging.
Slow.Deliberate.Hundreds of times.Until his shoulders locked and his skin tore.
By the fifth day, his hands were callused and raw.By the seventh, his swings no longer wavered.
On the tenth day, when the wolves came, drawn by the scent of blood and weakness—Kael did not run.
He stood in the dark.
Sword raised.
And when the first lunged at him, he did not think.
He struck.
The blade shattered in half.
But the wolf still died.
Kael fell to one knee, panting, covered in blood that wasn't his.
The second wolf circled.Kael smiled.
"Come on, then," he whispered."Let's see what breaks first—my flesh, your fangs, or the gods who abandoned me."